


Verumi

by chibiVeneficus



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-03 18:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8724433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibiVeneficus/pseuds/chibiVeneficus
Summary: Jazz had always felt that Prowl was a little...different than the rest of them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. So.
> 
> I started this waaaay back in 2009. I only just now finally finished it. Better very late than never, right? Ah hah. I'll post each chapter as soon as I'm done editing it but you can read what I've already got up [here](http://chibi-veneficus.livejournal.com/tag/story%3Averumi).
> 
> Note: This came to me after I read a whoooole bunch of PJ fics one day. Almost all of them had some random Autobot spout off the same exact phrase and my mind kinda went, 'Yeah, what if he was?' And then this was born.
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: Despite what the very first line says, this is not a death fic.

Prowl is dead.

That thought, no, that _truth_ ricochets back and forth in Jazz’s processor, gaining speed with every split second until it threatens to pierce through his helm and embed itself in the walls. He wants to deny it, he doesn’t want to believe, but he has no choice but to because the truth, the cold, gray truth, is right in front of him staring unseeingly back. 

He barely notices the mocking guards on the other side of his cell. Somewhere in some remote part of his processor he hears their cruel words, their coarse jokes and jeers of how the SIC had fallen to their commander‘s ire after putting up a futile fight. He hears but he does not register. His mind is locked on empty sheets of glass.

For what seems like an eternity, they stay and laugh and mock. They leave for the party when they finally realize that they can’t heckle their only alive captive into putting on an amusing show. Jazz is alone once more and how he wishes he wasn’t.

Breems crawl by before Jazz is able to find the strength in his battered frame and mind and spark to reach out to the shell across from him. He lightly touches an arm, finger tips just barely brushing the gray metal, feeling with his dulled sensors what he had already guessed. The metal is still warm, still radiating faint heat, but it’s cold, colder than if the mech before him had still been alive. He feels the cold travel through his arm to chill his erratically beating spark.

A static filled keen of anguish forces its way pass his painfully grinding vocalizer. A part of his mind, somehow not occupied solely on the unreal, all too real sight before him, wonders what went wrong. It had been a routine transport within their border from one base to another for special inspections. The chances of a Decepticon ambush had been less than five percent. Infinitesimal. Easily dismissed.

Two of their small group of fifteen had immediately deactivated. Another three in the next few moments of fighting. He and Prowl had been captured while covering the last of their group’s retreating forms, unwilling to allow the visiting governor and his aids to come to harm. The political backlash against the Autobots and their perceived weakness to protect an ally was too great a risk; the governor _had_ to escape, and the SIC and TIC were a nice alternative when the flashiest prize was no longer in reach.

Jazz had been so sure that he’d be able to spirit them out as soon as they were locked up anyway. He hadn’t expected to be medically overrode into stasis. When his counter programs had finally cleared the invasive command and forced a reboot, he awoke to Prowl being dragged away and a corpse returned to the cell.

His gaze wanders to the gaping hole in the shell’s chest. The spark chamber has been ripped out, crushed in hand or under foot. He doesn’t peer into the cavity to confirm because he already knows; he’s seen wounds such as this before. Another keen escapes and fills the air and he hastily snags his hand back from the cooling metal, unable to bear it. Optics finally manage to shutter close against the impossible sight. He still sees it. He doubts he’ll ever be able to forget it.

Time passes. He’s not sure how much - his chronometer hasn‘t worked ever since the ambush - and he’s not sure he cares. He’s had friends, close friends, die in front of him before but this is different. His confidant, the closest friend that he‘s ever had, is dead. A part of his world slowly crumbles away.

Something brushes against his arm. Jazz ignores it at first, thinking it a sensor ghost even if he can barely feel the floor supporting his bulk. Another brush, firmer this time, has him unshuttering his optics to lock onto the dim blue lights in front of him. His systems freeze, nearly offlining at the shear impossibility before him that could just be his processor playing a cruel joke --

“…Ja-aazz…” The dead shell that had been Prowl and still somehow was gasped out and Jazz found himself leaning over the gray chassis to peer into the gaping hole in disbelief. The ugly blackness stares back at him but even that can’t hide the empty space a spark chamber had once rested in. Shudders wrack his body at the sight.

“Prowl? But…how?” He weakly asks, still not sure if he himself is dying and this is just a malicious hallucination conjured by his broken processor. It has to be though; no mech could survive without their spark. Their spark was their very being.

Prowl, no, the _shell_ , weakly grasps at his arm. The hand is warm but still so cold. “Explaa-aain la-aateer…fuh…fueel lin…”

Jazz immediately sees what the shell is trying to tell him and without his consent his hand reaches into the cavity to grasp at (why hadn’t he noticed before?) the still sluggishly bleeding lines. A small roll of tape, one that the guards had somehow miraculously missed in their initial frisking, unsubspaces in his autonomous hand and it sets out wrapping the tears. Jazz watches it with distant optics, still unable to fully snatch his gaze away from the macabre sight of an empty chest.

The shell sighs in relief as the last line is fixed and Jazz pulls his hands slick with energon out. His optics rips themselves from the hole and settles on the faint blue growing stronger. Words, something that usually came so easily, escape him.

“We don’t ha-ave much time,” the shell says in a voice much stronger but still wildly fluctuating and staticky a few moments later. It cautiously sits up from its prone position. “We need to go while…they’re distraacted by my ‘dea-activaaaation.’” The shell grasps at the wall behind it to pull its broken chassis up. It looks expectantly at Jazz.

Jazz still can’t look away from the blue he never thought he’d see again and shakily stands up as well. He already knows what to do and feels like he’s really with Prowl once more but it couldn’t be since Prowl is dead and this is just a nightmare. But his body doesn’t listen to his mind and soon his slick hands are fumbling at the lock. The guards, in their cruel happiness, hadn’t bothered to check that the door had fully locked when they’d slammed it closed. Jazz is able to tease it slowly open, bites of electricity scorching his fingers as he does so, and he and the shell manage to escape the celebrating outpost unnoticed in their less than optimal state.

~*~

It takes long, too long, to reach an Autobot base and Jazz feels he should just stop, curl up, finally give into the flashing warnings. But the shell traveling with him urges him on in Prowl’s voice and he just can’t find it in himself to say no to it. When they finally do reach a base, not the one they had originally been traveling to, they forgo the main entrance and skirt around the patrols. Jazz doesn’t know why but he’s too tired to ask. Or maybe he just doesn’t care anymore.

They enter through a hidden entrance, one created specifically for special ops members, and take the fastest route to the medbay making sure to dodge cameras and mechs along the way. They finally make it to the medbay doors, the shell pausing just long enough to take a cursory scan to make sure the medbay is empty except for the medic on duty, and finally they step inside.

The medic, a boxy white and red model that looks vaguely familiar to Jazz‘s addled processor, nearly drops the tools he is cleaning at the sight of them. He gapes for a moment before visibly pulling himself together and orders a strained, “Isolation room two. _Now_.”

They obey, dragging themselves to the room while the medic hastily grabs a myriad of tools and supplies and follows closely behind them. The last of Jazz’s emergency reserves give out but he’s able to get himself onto a berth before he collapses into a heap on the floor. Stasis washes over him, and he sighs in relief as the world disappears. He hopes that when he awakes from this nightmare that everything will make sense again.

~*~

Jazz leisurely comes out of stasis, basking in the feel of being pain free and able to focus and feel his surroundings once again. Then past events catch up, crash through his processor, and he stiffens in shock as he remembers.

_Prowl!_

He sits up and scans the room. He finds the black and white mech laid out on a berth next to his, still in stasis but mostly repaired. The gaping hole is thankfully covered with dull sheet metal, and the monitors next to the berth are registering a dim but steady spark reading. Jazz starts to believe that the past few orns were nothing but false memories created by his possibly damaged processor.

But the memories are too real to not be anything else _but_ real. He can still feel the cooling gray metal, remembers the blackness where a chamber had once rested, shudders as he once again relives the gnawing despair that had clutched at his spark at the sight. But Prowl is before him, alive and whole and it doesn’t make any sense.

The door slides open and the same medic as before walks in, likely summoned by an alarm even though his shift must surely be over by now. The medic, looking tired but scowling something fierce, stands besides Jazz’s berth and blocks his view of the tactician as he pokes and prods at the still fresh welds. Jazz tries his hardest not to squirm.

“How’s Prowl?” He asks, unable to hold the question in any longer.

“He’s recovering,” the medic replies after a lengthy pause.

“But…his chamber…”

The medic looks at him sharply, as if sizing him up and it makes him want to fidget at the sheer intensity of it, before looking away and sighing deeply, wearily, through his intakes. “That’s something he’ll have to tell you himself. I have no right to speak for him.”

Jazz looks questioningly at the medic but the mech ignores it and takes his probing fingers away. He turns his attention to the prone tactician and leaves Jazz to his whirling thoughts. Silence presses heavily down, near suffocating, but Jazz is too deeply immersed in his thoughts to try a half-sparked attempt at lightening it.

After awhile the medic straightens from his investigation of Prowl looking somewhat satisfied. “He’ll wake up soon enough.” Not looking at Jazz, the mech heads for the door but pauses just before opening it. “Try not to move too much or you’ll open the welds. I’ll be back with some energon for the both of you.”

Jazz nods his thanks even though he knows the medic won’t see it. His gaze drifts back to Prowl as the medic leaves and remains there as his thoughts again twist and turn and try to make some sort of sense of everything that has recently happened. He fails.

He is dragged from his introspective brooding by Prowl’s gradual awakening. He silently watches as Prowl gingerly sits up, one hand briefly ghosting over the temporary metal covering the cavity in his chest. He stops when he notices Jazz’s gaze. He stares back, something intangible in his stare.

The medic chooses that moment to walk back in, two full cubes of medical energon in each hand and scowl still firmly in place. “Prowl,” he says, handing over a cube before depositing the other in Jazz’s hand.

“Ratchet,” Prowl acknowledges but doesn’t look away from Jazz.

“Operating status?”

“Eighty-eight percent and rising.”

“Good.” The medic, which Jazz now recognizes as the medibot that is next in line to become the Autobot’s CMO, nods his head once before turning back around for the door. “Now I have to go make some overdue calls. Those cubes should be empty by the time I get back, understand?” Ratchet doesn’t wait for an answer and leaves them to their own devices. Jazz feels that this is deliberate.

Uncomfortable silence rains down as they obediently sip at their cubes. Jazz is still staring at Prowl, wordlessly asking for an explanation. Prowl seems determined to ignore it before he finally sighs in defeat, setting his half finished cube to the side to clasp his hands together.

“You remember when the council was still in place, do you not?” Prowl begins. Jazz is slightly confused at such a seemingly random topic but nods nonetheless knowing that Prowl wouldn’t have brought it up unless it was imperative to the explanation. “When the war first began, the council proposed a plan that would allow the science division unlimited funds for advance A.I. research. It would, supposedly, allow the then large rebellion to be fought and won by an army of advance, expendable drones instead of sparked mechs and femmes. The plan was quickly vetoed as many saw it as a waste of finances and valuable supplies that could be used elsewhere at the time.

“Some of the council members, however, went ahead and secretly funded the research. It took a few vorns but the scientists managed to complete the A.I. program.” Prowl pauses, looking off to the side as if lost in memories and suddenly Jazz feels as if he’s freefalling through the sky with no parachute. “The A.I. was fully autonomous and able to make its own choices through logically deductions after it gained some experience. It seemed quite gifted in the art of tactics and even though it had greatly undeveloped emotional protocols and most likely would never be able to feel emphatic to anyone it was to interact with, they decided it would make a perfect tactician. They wasted no time in forging creation documents and shipping it off to the army where it quickly rose through the ranks.”

Prowl meets his stare and Jazz can feel the denial try to wash over his processor but it’s too late; he’s already connected the dots. He can’t deny it because the truth is once again staring at him, different but still the same.

It made so much sense now. When he had first meet Prowl there had been something undeniably _different_ about him. He had been stoic, absurdly efficient in his tasks, and the worst mech at small talk that Jazz had ever met. His background had been so squeaky clean Jazz had instantly doubted it until everything had checked out in one way or another. Gradually, Prowl had gotten better at socializing, at expressing himself even if it was so very minutely, and Jazz had brushed off his initial impression. After all, suddenly being promoted to second-in-command would certainly make a mech on edge and Prowl had always seemed like a mech that kept mostly to himself.

“Your spark readin‘?” Jazz asks, trying to hold in his rampant emotions.

“A false reading. One of the scientists designed it to ‘perfect the illusion.’” Another sigh. “Ratchet is the only one besides you to find out. Not even Optimus Prime knows.”

“So ya’ve just been a drone all this time, following your preprograms.” Some distant part of Jazz screams at himself for saying such cruel things; the larger, hurt part doesn’t care. “I don’t know what hurts more: the fact that you’re not really alive or the fact that you’ve just been masqueradin’ as mah friend for all these vorns.”

“Jazz --”

“No.” Jazz cuts Prowl off with a sharp gesture and sharper word and almost regrets it at Prowl’s distressed expression. At the last second he remembers that the thing before him is a drone, it isn’t capable of genuine emotions, it isn’t _alive_ , and almost manages to stuff all his emotions away. Almost. “Just…just give me some time.” He concedes, both hands tightening their painful hold on the berth’s edge. He hears it creak under the pressure.

Prowl looks down on his clasped hands in his lap, face once again its usual blank persona. “Of course.”

When the medic comes again and permits Jazz to leave after angrily commanding him to finish his energon, the saboteur can’t get out fast enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Jazz is furious.

He’s not supposed to be this way - he knows this. He is supposed to always be cool and in control and three steps ahead of the game because he is _Jazz_. He isn’t supposed to be so out of sorts for so long after the fact. He is supposed to bounce back, better than before and smiling all the while. He is supposed to be unflappable.

But he can’t be. Not this time. Not when the attack is so close to his spark.

And isn’t that the crux of the matter. It’s almost hilarious how something he takes practically for granted is the cause of his current turbulent emotions. The initial numbness of disbelief that had settled in his spark after he fled the medbay had been easier to deal with than this unfamiliar fury that slowly burns through his circuits now. At least he had been able to think clearly when the numbness had surrounded him. This burning rage forces his thoughts to turn in circles, over and around and through themselves until he can’t think anything else.

His thoughts always return to it. How _dare_ that drone masquerade as his friend for all this time. He had sought that thing out during long nights, sat with it, told it secrets that he couldn’t bear alone. That thing had sat while he had rambled on, just sat there and listened, and Jazz had believed that it cared about those secret things he had whispered to it. He had believed that that thing cared about the war, about the proud Autobot cause, about _him_.

Now he knows that that thing isn’t capable of caring, it isn’t capable of any emotions, not true ones. It is quite an actor, Jazz has to give it that. He hadn’t the slightest inkling of its truth before that disastrous transport. Its disguise had been perfect.

Or maybe he had seen the signs all along. Maybe he had been too blinded by his new fake friendship with that thing that he ignored the signals. He always does let his emotions get the better of his judgment when it concerns personal matters. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t brought up this disturbing information to the attention of Prime yet.

The part of him that’s still rational tells him why he hasn’t told anyone: it would be pandemonium if the Autobots ever found out. Jazz doesn’t contemplate how low the army’s morale would drop if word ever got out. And, as much as he wishes he could deny it, the Autobot cause needs the drone, like a mech needs energon to survive. No other has been capable of producing strategy after ingenious strategy like it has been able to. Sometimes its plans are the only thing that has been able to keep their army from falling apart. He can’t turn it in.

But even though he can’t expose the drone for what it is or make it quietly disappear into the night, another option presents itself to Jazz in the orns after the truth comes out. The drone doesn’t seem inclined to try and bring back the fake camaraderie they once shared, leaving Jazz well enough alone during any coinciding off-hours they have, and Jazz is just fine with this arrangement. It’s not the most perfect solution, but Jazz resolves to ignore it right back. He is still able to work with it in official settings despite his raging emotions, and it helps that, as Head of Special Operations, he has the excuse to disappear for lengths of time without having to explain himself before hand. His fellow operatives, however, have always been harder to avoid and have the habit of checking up on one another when something seems amiss.

“Jazz, what happened?” Mirage asks after roping his superior to stay behind after a mission briefing. The TIC has no wish to chat with him, but Jazz knows that Mirage won’t drop the issue now that he has brought it up. Besides, better Mirage than anyone else.

It doesn’t mean that he’ll make it easy for Mirage though. “What happened? What do ya mean, ‘what happened‘?”

“Prowl.”

“Nothing happened.”

Mirage’s optics sharpen. “Don’t lie to me. Something happened between the two of you. You don’t have to go into specifics but you do have to get whatever this is off of your processor.”

“Paying me back for helpin’ you after the Towers, are ya?”

Silence meets Jazz’s question. Jazz sighs and rubs at his audio horn, knowing that that was a low blow and knows that he has to go even lower. “Tell me, Mirage. What’s your thoughts on drones?”

“You should know that all ready,” Mirage says. His body language gives nothing away but his voice is as cold as the far reaches of space.

“Tell me again.”

Mirage crosses his arms and moves as if to turn away. He halts in mid-motion, standing his ground as he answers. “Drones can be more than just simple machines that do what their programming dictates. They can grow past it given enough time.”

“Most mechs don’t take too kindly to that way of thinkin‘.”

“I know.”

“So what would you do if ya found out Trailbreaker was a drone?”

“…I’m sorry, what does Trailbreaker have to do with this conversation?” Mirage asks, growing irritated at his superior’s roundabout way of answering a question.

Jazz refuses the urge to look away. “What would you do if you found out one of your friends was really a drone?”

Realization blooms in Mirage’s optics. He takes a moment to answer.

“…Would it really matter?”

“What?”

“Would finding that information out change anything?” Mirage begins to pace, three sharp steps back and forth. “He’s still my friend, yes? The memories the two of us built together would still be there. Those memories are not fake. The only thing that changes is my perception of him and that will fade into the background over time.”

The fury Jazz has been trying to keep quiet unfurls bit by bit. “It doesn’t change the fact it kept quiet about it for all this time! It led me on, makin’ me think that it was my friend. It used my trust, Mirage.”

“He didn’t _use_ your trust, he wanted to keep it!” Mirage answers Jazz’s angry outburst with his own. “Your reaction is exactly why he kept quiet about it. Most Cybertronians don’t make it a secret on what they think of drones. He just wanted to avoid that experience, especially with you. You‘re his friend, Jazz.”

“Certainly doesn’t feel like that ta me anymore.”

Mirage heads for the door, shaking his head. “I can’t change your mind for you and I won’t try to. Just remember this Jazz -- “ Mirage turns back and looks at his superior, optics piecing with the strength of conviction the spy feels for his next words, “ -- that it has been in my experience that mechs without physical sparks have more of one than ones that do.”

“Ah’ll keep that in mind. Is that all?”

Mirage moves as if to continue but only shakes his head again before stepping out of the room. Jazz stays behind, head cradled in his hand while his processor whirls with thoughts.

~*~

Jazz never likes going undercover for any length of time. Too much changes while he’s off playing the Decepticon. Superiors are replaced, mechs are transferred to different units, and the fluid battle lines rearrange themselves. For a mech always wanting to be in the know, going deliberately into communication lockout is always hard even if he does gain new data on the opposite side.

This time is no different. Instead of the masked face of CMO Buildup that greets him as he onlines in the Iacon medbay, it is the unfamiliar face of Ratchet hovering above him. He answers the medic’s scowl with a scowl of his own. Ratchet is the last medic on Cybertron Jazz had ever wanted to see again.

“What’re you doin’ here?” Jazz asks as he sits up from his prone position on the med berth. He checks his forearm armor but his pleasure at it being back to its usual shape and coloring is overshadowed by the medic standing besides him.

Ratchet’s scowl intensifies at the question. “One would think it would be a wise decision for the new Chief Medical Officer to familiarize himself with his new medbay by working in it. You’re welcome, by the way. There isn’t anyone else here that either has the clearance or the training necessary to mold you back. I just save you a stint in the brig.”

“I’m sensin’ that there’s another reason in there.”

“Yes, there is.” Ratchet leans forward until he‘s a mere hand’s breadth away from Jazz‘s face. He hisses out between clenched denta, _“You are an idiot.”_

Jazz glares back. “And why’s that?”

“Sparks aren’t the be all, end all, Jazz.”

Despite his distaste for the direction the conversation is turning, Jazz can’t stop his curiosity from bubbling up through his simmering anger. It keeps him rooted to the berth when all he wants to do is walk away.

“…What do yah mean?”

“I mean that we’re more than just balls of floating energy. Yes, they do shape us but they _aren’t_ us. Far from it.”

That statement goes against every hard-coded lesson in his processor he’s had since he onlined before Vector Sigma. Sparks are the core of their very being. If sparks weren’t them, then what made them any different than the drones they used for small tasks? He keeps quiet as most of his fledgling curiosity is replaced by vehement disgust. The change in the room’s mood doesn’t dissuade the medic from continuing.

Ratchet huffs at the expression to cross the TIC’s face before straightening up. “Look, I shouldn’t be telling you this but this has gotten ridiculous. If you aren’t willing to take your head out of your aft, then I’m going to have to pry it out and make you see the truth in all of this. But first you have to understand that sparks are not us. Sparks are spheres of condensed energy stitched together by Vector Sigma. Depending on the size, frequency, density, and how much heat it gives off, it forms a base preference.”

“Preference?” The question slips out before Jazz is able to rein it back in.

“A mech with a spark that has a higher frequency tends be more high-strung while one with a lower frequency is more easygoing, for example. This is why mechs without a personality component installed before they’re onlined seem to already have one. Sparks help mold the overall personality of a mech,” Ratchet explains. “And that’s it.”

“There must be more to it than that!” Jazz protests. He slips off of the med berth and jabs an angry finger at the medic’s chest. “There _has_ to be more than that. Sparks have to be more than just a fancy extra code for a Cybertronian’s behavior!”

“Other than the spark acting as a type of weak secondary power source, no,” Ratchet says as he bats the finger away.

Jazz wants to scream to the medic why, why does he believe this when it contradicts near everything they have ever been taught. If he is to accept these ridiculous beliefs, it would leave behind a hole of uncertainty in the steel-honed convictions that have governed his choices since he first onlined. Another thought rises above the chaotic storm of impressions, asking quietly about the drone and what would it look like if Jazz were to suddenly act as if nothing had happened were he to accept these ridiculous beliefs. Jazz throws that thought aside, pushing it back below until it is smothered by his rising anger, and focuses his attention back on attacking Ratchet’s words.

“Then why do we offline if our sparks are extinguished? What about the Matrix of Leadership and the Well of All Sparks and everything else that we have? Are you tellin‘ me that those things don‘t exist too? That one part of our entire culture is built on false beliefs?!”

“I don’t know and I’m not saying that! As far as I can tell, that’s all true. I just don’t understand all the mechanics behind it and I don‘t believe I ever will.” Ratchet’s engine revs in harsh counterpoint to his words.

Jazz throws his hands up in the air, fed up with the medic‘s half-crazed explanations and growing angrier at every word. “Why do ya know this? Why should I even believe what you’re sayin‘ in the first place? You’re just a medic. This stuff sounds like it ought to belong ta the priests and theorists who have the programmin‘ for this type of stuff.”

“I’m old, Jazz, and I’ve been a medic long before this blasted civil war broke out,” Ratchet says. He places his hands on his hips, looking down on the saboteur with the best glower he has, trying to get the mech to see. “I use to work at Kaon’s medcenter in the ICU. One orn, a mech was dragged in. There had been a mining accident and the poor slag heap had been buried in a cave-in. We fixed him the best we could but some things were unsalvageable. His memory core was one of them. We had to scrap and replace it.”

“So what?”

Ratchet‘s own temper is barely held back as he explains farther. “So _what?_ He wasn’t the _same_ , that‘s what! All those tales that a spark can reformat a memory core into the original are _lies._ The mech was like a new Cybertronian fresh out of Vector Sigma’s chambers. He shared characteristics with the mech he _had_ been, but he wasn’t the _same_. The mech that he had been before was gone forever. Dead.”

His processor runs through Ratchet’s words, piecing them together before breaking them apart and fitting them into different angles. The medic has no reason to lie to him about this - what could he possibly gain by doing so? - and it sounds like he really believes what he’s spewing out. For all of that conviction in the medic‘s voice though, Jazz’s spark rebels against everything Ratchet has said and Jazz has always been more inclined to listen to his spark when the physical evidence is iffy. He stays silent, his glare more than enough of an answer.

The medic‘s following sigh is half-annoyance, half-painful knowing that he wasn‘t breaking though. He doesn‘t give up. “What I’m telling you is that it doesn’t matter if Prowl has a spark or not. As long as he has his memories, he is _Prowl,_ and Prowl is as alive as the rest of us. If he wasn’t, I would’ve deactivated him when I had my arms elbow deep in his innards the first time around.”

“Ah don’t have time for this anymore, Ratchet.” Jazz turns to the exit, turning his back to the medic and everything he’s been trying to say. “Ah need ta see the SIC. Got some info ta pass along.”

“You’re going to have some trouble locating him. He’s been MIA since the Decepticon attack on Nova Cronum’s borders. Of course they had to attack while he was there,” Ratchet mumbles the last part out as he leans back against a med berth, hand rubbing against his chevron in a gesture of weariness.

Jazz turns back, face scrunched in a frown. “There was an attack on Nova Cronum? When?”

Ratchet shrugs, pressing the palm of his hand against an optic. Something in Jazz’s memory stirs fitfully at the one dim light shining back.

“An orn or two ago, I think. We managed to turn them back fairly fast, they certainly didn’t seem to put much effort into it, but not before they managed to blow up a section of Cronum’s outer wall. We’re still pulling out survivors. Since Megatron hasn’t called bragging that he has Prowl in his brig by now, we’re holding out hope that Prowl’s buried under the rubble with a broken comm. link and nothing more serious.”

_“Primus,”_ Jazz breaths out as some queer pieces of information he’s gathered while playing Decepticon fit themselves together into a horrible picture. His spark roils in its chamber, feelings of indecision and horror and duty rising above all mixing together into a maelstrom of chaotic thoughts. He doesn’t give himself the chance to think; he’s out of the isolation room and squeezing his way pass the still-opening medbay doors before he realizes that Ratchet is yelling after him for vaulting over occupied med berths.

“-- and come back here! I still haven’t cleared you for normal duty!” Ratchet shouts as he tries in vain to capture the fleeing mech.

“No time, gotta see Optimus!” Jazz shouts back and is gone before Ratchet makes it to the hallway.


	3. Chapter 2.5

Optimus is troubled.

Things haven’t been going well for the Prime. It seems that every time he turns around, a new problem crops up that requires his attention. He tries his best to deal with them but he knows that he can’t handle every problem as speedily as they appear. It frustrates Optimus to no end, and forces him to work already long nights longer to no avail.

He is in a tiring video conference with the commander from Altihex’s Autobot congregate when Jazz barges in without so much as a courtesy ping. Jazz terminates the connection with Altihex and runs a high level bug sweep before Optimus is able to process what is happening.

“Jazz, what is the meaning of --”

“Sorry but we don’t got time,” Jazz cuts in. The TIC looms over Optimus’s desk and only his frightfully serious demeanor saves him from instantly earning a few more insubordination charges. “Ah need your say-so to do an immediate solo extraction of a higher ranked officer who’s been captured.”

There isn’t many who have higher authority than Jazz, and only one of those few has been missing for some time.

“Prowl.” Optimus’s engine rumbles with his unease as he leans back and folds his hands before his face. “What proof do you have he’s been captured by the Decepticons? Megatron has yet to call demanding ransom.”

“Not Megatron. Worse, it’s Shockwave,” Jazz spits out. “I didn’t hear anythin’ about the mech himself but a small squad under his command has disappeared,” the very squad that had ambushed and captured them, in fact, “and he’s been quiet even though there’s been no chatter that Megatron’s ordered anythin’ built. It’s not much, Ah know, but we don’t got _time_ ta go over it all. Ah need to leave now, before Shockwave can learn anything vital.”

At any other time, Optimus would have given his consent without a second thought. Prowl is too valuable a resource for the enemy to have, alive or dead. Something nags at him, though, warning caution. It makes him pursue a line of thought farther than he would normally do, and Optimus voices it before Jazz impatiently throws everything into the wind and runs off on his own.

“How will I know you won’t kill Prowl yourself in the course of your ‘rescue’?”

Jazz sputters for a moment, in disbelief or automatic denial, Optimus can’t tell, before he’s able to respond.

“What’s the point of mounting a rescue if I’m only goin’ ta kill the captured bot?” Jazz asks in return. “Why would yah even ask me that, and now of all times!”

“I am not blind, Jazz. I know of the relationship breakdown you two have suffered since you both were captured.” Optimus pauses, debating with himself if he’s willing to gamble the future on half-guessed knowledge. If Jazz _doesn’t_ know, if his and Prowl’s falling out really is the result of something else after all, than he is giving Jazz fodder to start an unofficial investigation that could permanently cripple the Autobot army. But he has no choice in this now. Optimus cannot justify what he has asked with any other reply. “You know, don’t you? That Prowl is different from you and I.”

Jazz freezes in place. “You _knew?_ “ he hisses out and Optimus has to resist looking away as his suspicions are revealed to be correct. There is so much barely concealed hurt in Jazz’s glare.

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Since the beginning.” Ever since he first obtained the Matrix and the title Prime along with it. It had been an unwanted surprise at first, this ability to sense the sparks of his fellow Cybertronians. It made him feel even more responsible for the lives he was suddenly in charge of. But he had learned to embrace it after a time, cherish it as something that helped him view his soldiers as Cybertronians and not just cannon fodder to win the civil war like the council wanted him to.

And then he’d meet Prowl.

Optimus wants to tell Jazz exactly how shocked he was when Prowl first crossed his path. He wants to try and explain the feeling of _wrongness_ that ebbed over him as he looked at the mech that had no spark and yet was standing before him. He wants to tell Jazz all about his search for a clue, any clue, that would give him insight into this phenomenon and about how that clue mysteriously appeared on his desk in the form of a datapad explaining everything - the proposed plan, its rejection, how it continued anyway - with a plea at the end that Optimus leave Prowl be before a dormant virus wiped the datapad clean.

It had given him so much to think about. Optimus had agonized over what to do with this new information and how he should go about it. In the end, he decided to let the knowledge remain in his processor safely tucked away. Optimus couldn’t allow anything to happen to Prowl because the true, dark reality of it was that the Autobot’s continued existence rested on the drone’s tactical strategies. No matter what his personal feelings on the matter was, Optimus had to let the drone continue playing the part of SIC or risk killing the cause.

But he can’t explain. Like Jazz has said, they have no time.

Optimus commands his voice to rise above Jazz’s livid silence. “Have an emergency extraction team waiting on standby. This mission will be for naught if you’re unable to transport Prowl to safety after you locate and rescue him. He will most likely be in no condition to move far without medical aid.”

To his credit, Jazz’s voice is professionally neutral when he responds. “Understood, Prime. Ah’ll pick a team that won’t ask questions before or after. Is that all?”

“Yes. Proceed with all haste. And Jazz?“

Jazz stops before the exit but he doesn’t turn around or acknowledge Prime in any other way. Optimus knows that he deserves the cold treatment but that doesn’t stop him from wishing that everything was different.

“For what it’s worth...I’m sorry.”

The following moment stretches on until it begins to break under the strain of the silence. Finally, Jazz nods before hurrying out. It’s not an acceptance of the woefully inadequate apology, but an acknowledgement that it, at least, exists. Optimus forces himself to be content with that and reinitializes his communication line with Altihex’s commander to continue his interrupted meeting. As he assures the commander that the disconnection was due to nothing more than an unexpected power flux, a part of Optimus focuses on the future and what new troubles it will bring now.


	4. Chapter 2.9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY it's new stuff!!
> 
> also: warning for implied torture

Prowl feels nothing.

It’s the only thing keeping him sane. If he dares to reactivate his tactile receptors, his higher-level processes, anything that isn’t vital for core-processor function, he knows that something inside of him will break. No medic would be able to fix him then.

“Such a curious automaton you are,” Prowl hears Shockwave muse to himself. The bulky scientist paces the length of the slab Prowl is clamped to before he drifts back over to his tray of tools. They gleam under the bright florescent lights as Shockwave turns them over, one by one. There is no hurry in his hand.

“Those foot soldiers had no idea what a scientific marvel you are.” Shockwave’s voice rises in volume and aggravation drips from every syllable as he says, “To think they tried to deactivate you, and then in their foolish joviality they allowed you to escape!“ He shakes his head in incredulity, but when he continues his voice is once again its usual smooth cadence. “Ah well. At least they made for better test subjects than subordinates.”

Shockwave picks up a scalpel and carefully examines it. Prowl finds that he can’t look away from the harsh light glinting along its edge.

“You have no spark, and yet you have sentience,” Shockwave says and places the scalpel back to move on to the next tool. Over and over the tools turn in his hand as he thinks aloud. “No base personality component, and yet you have a shadow of a persona. A fascinating occurrence, one I’ve never seen before. One I‘d like to emulate myself. Sparks are such flighty, unreliable things.”

Prowl watches Shockwave as the scientist plays with his instruments.

“Rooting through your programming has brought no insights. Then again, you have done an admirable job in stonewalling me at every process interconnect. Since you have no spark and rely on a generator to remain online, spark probing will get me nowhere closer to my answer. I wonder, does the answer lie in the physical circuits themselves? Do you know, Prowl?”

Prowl remains silent.

Shockwave isn’t phased at his subject’s muteness. He continues on. “You couldn’t know. How could a physically altered databoard cause spontaneous sentience, after all? It doesn’t seem logical and yet I can’t deny your existence.”

The soft scrape of metal on metal doesn’t draw Prowl’s attention away from Shockwave’s mockery of a face. Shockwave examines the cruel tool in his hand before he turns back to his subject. “I was hoping to avoid doing anything too invasive; you’re one of a kind, after all. But it appears as if I am left with no choice. Pity.

“Hold still. This shouldn’t take long.”


	5. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: brief descriptions of physical torture and injuries

Jazz is motionless.

Only the thin metal walls of a maintenance tunnel is protecting him from exposure. Shockwave is typing at a console, oblivious to Jazz’s intrusion into his domain for the moment but that could easily change. Jazz knows that if he makes a sound, no matter how muted, Shockwave will know he is being watched and take immediate action.

It appears that ever fickle luck is on his side. One of the base's few sparked personnel comes and draws Shockwave away from his computers, although for how long is debatable. Jazz doesn't unlock his internal fans until they are well out of the room and even then risks venturing out of the maintenance tunnel only when he is certain that they aren't immediately coming back.

As immaterial as a shadow, Jazz flits through Shockwave’s lab knowing that an invisible countdown is running down against him. The numbers slowly tick-tick-tick away as he works his way around the meticulously straight lab, looking for anything that will lead him to where Shockwave is keeping the Autobot's drone. Most of the lab is sterile and white with several laden work benches arranged in neat little rows that do nothing to hide the implied horror of used body parts sorted and categorized on most of them. The smell of cleanser is almost overwhelmingly harsh even though there is no evidence of a recent cleanup.

The multitude of computers are a tempting target but Jazz restrains the urge to tamper with them. The risk of setting off an alarm or running out of time poking through Shockwave’s notes is too great to chance. He can’t afford to be found out before he’s secured the drone. With a parting look and a silent promise of ‘next time’, he turns away to continue his search.

Jazz has this compound’s main entrances and exits mapped out but there are many doors in the lab that lead to black areas on his stolen schematics. He debates on the potential risk of hacking open one of those black side doors as he walks by them when the sound of machinery struggling to run crash against his audios. Most of the equipment in the lab hums in well-tuned synchrony that is easily dismissed as background noise. The sole note of disturbance draws Jazz's attention to one of the shielded alcoves on the far side of the room.

He pulls aside the protective, opaque plastic sheet. What he sees would be horrifying if it wasn't such a familiar sight.

Torture is a well-known friend to Jazz. He has courted it more often than not, and has used it to his advantage more than he is willing to admit. The civil war has waged so long that such methods have become, while not accepted, an open secret for gathering information from prisoners. Jazz knows how to make a captive spill their fluids with a degree of mastery that would have disgusted him vorns ago. Now it is merely another skill in a great repertoire he has accumulated over the long war to help the Autobot cause.

It doesn't help him much now. At best, Jazz is able to tell that the drone has been neatly dissected with medical precision: the various cuts adorning its plating are clean and straight, and there is very little spilled energon visible. Several internal components have been removed and neatly placed on a side-tray but, while Jazz knows how to cause pain, he is no medic and can't tell if anything vital for function has been pulled out. The only way to find out is to try to bring the drone back online.

Jazz locates a dataport - the search made easy because the cover hinges have been sliced through and he tries to ignore how his thoughts try to fragment at that fact - and plugs himself in.

The world on the other end is dark, but the special medical codes that Ratchet grudgingly provided Jazz before the mission easily switch the lights back on. He is about to pull his consciousness out when a cascade of errors catches his attention. Jazz tries to ignore them, the ever present countdown at the forefront of his thoughts, but one error in particular seems out of place amongst all the physical damage. Against his better judgment, Jazz follows the error-action tree to its conclusion.

It reveals that the drone’s main memory core has been removed. Torture generally doesn’t include the removal of the subject’s memory cores since it would make the whole terrible process pointless. Only experienced medics have the skill and know-how to safely remove memory cores without potentially corrupting vital data. Actually reading and understanding the data is a whole other box of scraplets.

But Jazz doesn’t have the time to ponder exactly what Shockwave was trying to accomplish with this odd act. As the drone powers up, Jazz releases the clamps holding it captive and searches the side-tray of parts. He locates a sole memory core nearly hidden by the bulk of a large circuit board. There’s no time to check if it’s actually the drone’s; he hurriedly subspaces it. He hopes that doing so isn’t the worst possible thing he could actually do in this situation.

“PROW-1 is online.” Jazz turns back to see the drone sitting upright and its optics staring into the middle distance. “Warning: outer frame integrity is compromised. Several internal components are non-functional or removed. Failure to uplink to main memory core. Status: This unit is unfit for active duty.”

Its voice is altogether too flat and mechanical. Drone-like. Jazz feels prickles of unease chase across his plating as he stares at the mutilated drone, unsure why this comes as such a shock to him. But there’s just no time to stay and ponder over this new realization trying to take root in his mind; Jazz needs to spirit them out of Shockwave’s domain before the scientist suspects anything is amiss.

“You able to walk?”

“Affirmative.”

“Get up then.”

“This unit is unable to comply. Only personnel with proper security clearance -- “

“Frag it all, I don’t have time for this!” Jazz reaches out and tugs the drone off the gurney. He waits long enough for the drone to catch its balance before reversing his grip and dragging it towards his chosen escape route. Jazz has a small window of opportunity to get them both out undetected so long as nobody sparked stumbles across them. Shockwave’s drone patrols are a constant threat as well but at least they are predictable; knowledge of Shockwave’s bad habit of programming his drone’s route timing off of mathematical equations is an exploit Jazz keeps jealously guarded.

The security cameras in the halls are the greatest problem. Physically wired throughout the complex, they cannot be wirelessly tapered with which means most of Jazz’s preferred methods for dealing with them won’t work while on the run. He settles for a quick, directed high-frequency pulse from his hip stereos to briefly scramble the cameras as he runs past with the drone. It’s fast and dirty - if someone is actually paying close attention to the monitors they’ll be spotted. There’s also the noise of the pulses to consider but hopefully it’s too high in pitch for any of the base’s personnel to hear.

The drone is an unexpected obstacle in their break for freedom. It lags behind with stumbling steps, internals loudly chirring with effort as it tries to keep up with Jazz’s quick motions. Several times it speaks up to repeat its serial number and its physical damages, and any attempts to hush it make it declare that only authorized personnel are allowed to give it orders. Jazz soon begins to wish that he had kept it offline and heaved it onto his shoulders for the escape for that unwieldy option would surely be preferable to this misery.

But it’s one of the drone’s stumbles that saves his life. The drone lurches almost to a stop, forcefully pulling Jazz backwards just as a high-powered laser beam impacts the section of wall he would have been in front of. The heat of it blisters the paint on his hood and takes off two fingers of his hand that had swung out in counterbalance. It’s a small price to pay for his life.

“There’s the glitch mouse in my systems.”

It’s Shockwave: huge, monstrous, his cannon still smoking and humming with gathering charge. He blocks the junction in the corridor with his Sentinel drones fanning out behind him. There’s no way Jazz can get through them, not exposed, by himself, and lugging a damaged drone.

Jazz doesn’t stop to think on how they were discovered or of strategies. He blasts the scientist with the full power of his sound and light show, barely dampening his own sensors in time. He doesn’t wait to see Shockwave step back, hand clamped over his optic before Jazz turns back the way he came. He barely takes a step before realizing the drone is a deadweight on his arm, optics cracked and smoking, completely offline from friendly fire, and he scoops the frame up over his shoulder in one smooth motion as he moves. The drone’s exposed inners sickeningly crunch against the hard planes of his shoulder but there’s no time to try and rearrange the drone in a more comfortable position.

The next step has the paint on his unexposed back scorched to grey as Shockwave blindly fires at where the saboteur had been standing. Jazz can only hope the drone’s head is still attached as he continues to run.

Another step. He manages to get a bleat of static through open comms before interference clogs the airwaves. Not unexpected and, thankfully, that brief burst was all he needed to throw out for as soon as the static burst is swallowed, an explosion rocks through the building. It makes Jazz bounce against the wall and momentarily lose his stride. He hears Shockwave, still disoriented from his attack, fall to the floor with an enraged shout, buying him a few more precious kliks of headway. The new commotion is the extraction team making their presence known, but it will now take a bit of creative planning on Jazz’s part to get to the extraction point.

His original escape route nixed and Shockwave’s forces alerted to his presence, Jazz is forced to use his backup plan. With Shockwave and his Sentinels playing catch-up, he has just enough time to awkwardly shove himself and the drone get into a maintenance shaft to get out of sight. It’s a tight fit but he doesn’t have to go far through the tunnels. Earlier in his duct crawling searching for the drone, Jazz had left an emergency exit in place, just in case. Fickle luck is still graciously with him; the makeshift exit is close to the junction where Shockwave had cut him off.

The oval ring of compact explosives is still there, barely discernable from the uniform grey of the wall. Jazz quickly inserts the blasting caps with expert motions and barely turns all the way from it before he clicks the detonator. The small explosives neatly punch through the outer wall with a brilliant flash and a sharp _crack!_ that’s immediately swallowed by the racket outside.

Outside is a mess of Sentinels swarming over the compound and trines of seekers flying overhead. Dark, bellowing smoke crawls through the area, sticking to every surface and obscuring the field of view. The seekers can’t shoot into the smoke without risking collateral damage and, Jazz notes with satisfaction as he plunges into the smoke, their circles look tight with frustration. The smoke licks at his plating but doesn’t cling to it like it does with everything else. Drones bump and clatter against each other, and Jazz does his best to weave around the chaos without being noticed.

The extraction team is hiding out over a ridge where the bombed out shells of buildings cover them from aerial spotting. The path there is hardly straightforward; even before being discovered, rendezvousing would have required Jazz to circle around the near entirety of the outside of Shockwave’s facility. Cutting through the airfield does save time but brings a much higher chance of being caught, even with the smokescreen.

Of course this is where luck decides to abandon him. A Sentinel slams into his back, making him bounce away and against another drone and another and _another_ in a painful game of pinball. Jazz barely keeps his grip on the SIC while he bounces to and fro. He manages to come to a stumbling stop before the cycle renews itself but only after dents litter his frame. The Sentinels, blind, their simplistic programming unable to tell that their target was one of the frames bumping into them, continue to fruitlessly search.

Jazz manages to narrowly avoid any more physical contact with the fumbling drones but he can feel himself starting to run out of stamina. The weight of the drone pushes on him and he can feel his steps faltering as the weight drags him down. He isn’t built for heavy lifting, and while the drone is much lighter than it would have been if all its internal organs were still in place, its surprisingly dense plating makes it heavier than another mech of the same size-class. Jazz can’t keep this up for much longer.

He won’t have to. A hint of yellow plating around the crumbling remains of a tower turns into Bumblebee, his blaster out and aimed downwards as he keeps careful watch. He brings it to bear when Jazz steps from the smoke, covering his back as Jazz lopes past and then follows after his commander.

Smokescreen appears around a bend not a moment later, smoke still trailing from his mufflers as he transformers and takes Bumblebee’s position covering the bottleneck.

“Twenty kliks before our cover’s gone,” Smokescreen warns them. He slowly backs up towards the transport, optics searching for anything that might notice and give away their position. The smoke is great ground cover but the only thing keeping the seekers from discovering them is their fixation on the smoke. Once that’s gone, their only cover would be the empty shells of destroyed buildings which wasn‘t really cover at all once they start moving.

“Come on, come on!“ Ratchet motions for Jazz to hurry, half out of the transport‘s bed as if he‘s only just holding himself back from rushing over to tend to the drone.

Ratchet shouldn’t be here - the chief medical officer is too high a target to risk on an extraction, no matter what they were extracting - but he had ruthlessly shoved his way onto the transport and refused to leave. Jazz had only spent a klik arguing with him before practicality won out. Ratchet is the only one with medical experience that can fix the drone; trying to bring any other medic would result in them learning of the SIC’s actual nature, and from there, possible the entire army.

_Shockwave knows._ The thought abruptly twists through Jazz’s mind as he reaches Ratchet. It’s entirely possible that the scientist plans to share this secret with Megatron. What precautions they’ve taken could ultimately be useless. It’s only a matter of time before the Autobot’s morale is broken --

“Give him here,” Ratchet demands, breaking Jazz from the thought’s grip, his hands effortlessly finding where to grab on the drone so that its innards don’t catch on Jazz’s shoulder when he lifts the drone off and lays it in the bed of the vehicle. He _tsks_ at whatever his scans say and immediately begins to pull plating apart. Jazz only gets a glance of the drone before he turns to help Smokescreen watch out for any pursers but the look he catches makes him wince. The drone’s doorwings have been sheared near completely off from when Shockwave had fired on their retreating forms and what surfaces that hadn’t been in direct contact with Jazz’s plating is completely incased in thick, chalky soot. It’s optics are still leaking smoke. It’s barely recognizable as the SIC, much less an actual Cybertronian, and Jazz does his best to push that disturbing image aside, looking instead for silhouettes against the dark sky.

“Bumblebee, get us home,” Jazz orders, and the transport rumbles off.


	6. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year y'all

Jazz is uneasy.

The ride back is tense and bumpy, filled with the roar of the wind and muted sounds of Ratchet doing what he can for the drone. Bumblebee’s attention is solely on guiding their ride through the bombed out road ahead, while Smokescreen sits on the back edge of the skimmer, keeping a continued sharp-optic for any pursuers. Jazz knows he should still be helping Smokescreen watch the skies or going over what the report should say but his mind is preoccupied with thoughts heavy with realizations and discomfort over his past actions.

He doesn’t want to feel bad for his reactions to the truth. At the time, they had made perfect sense. The anger, the bitterness, the tint of disgust coloring the edges, it all had felt right after what he’d learned. Those feelings still drudge up when he thinks back to that time, even now.

But that was then, before all… _this_.

“Here.” Jazz discretely hands over the memory core to Ratchet despite a strange reluctance that comes over him to keep it tucked away in subspace. Ratchet takes it, face a grim mask, but doesn’t yell at him for keeping the core there. Jazz’s spark slows its frantic spinning a bit, bolstered by this quiet signal that he hasn’t screwed up.

With the wind howling past the open bed of the transport it’s unlikely that Bumblebee or Smokescreen can overhear him if he talks quietly enough. Even so, it’s a bad idea to even hint at what the SIC actually is out loud. This far out of Shockwave’s territory comms are an option but…guilt loosens his lips.

“You were right. ‘Bout the memory thing.”

He receives a dismissive snort in response.

“…Sorry.”

Ratchet looks unfamiliarly old and tired in the bright light thrown from his arc welder, his voice drained of the anger that had colored it previously while discussing this subject. He spares a glance for Jazz but it holds no victory.

“Not me you need to apologize to. Get some recharge, Jazz. It’s going to be a long night.”

~*~

Jazz onlines to a familiar ceiling. He must have heeded Ratchet’s advice because he doesn’t remember arriving on base, much less being transported to medbay from the vehicle. Ratchet most likely had been a helping hand in making that last part happen. Jazz pings his diagnostics; they report that the medical stasis codes have been purged, his fingers have been replaced and his dents popped, but his paint-nanites still need more time to heal. He takes a moment to just lie there, stare at the report, and get his thoughts and feelings in order. Try to, at least.

He sits up when it becomes clear the maelstrom in his spark won‘t calm, his frame aching a dozen different ways in protest to that physical action. Jazz deliberately turns his attention to the other mech in the room.

The other mech has been cleaned of soot and his abdomen has been put back together, but he looks oddly small. With a start, Jazz realizes that the other mech’s door wings haven‘t been replaced. The mech’s hands are clasped tightly together but the shaking in the digits is still visible.

He is looking at Jazz, but _does he remember?_ Jazz doesn’t know if Ratchet was successful in installing the memory core, _if_ that memory core had even been the correct one. Had there been memory corruption? Was this still the same mech or was he gone forever, for real this time?

“…you alright?” Jazz asks when the unknowing begins to crush him.

“Yes. Other than the wait time on new sensor wing fabrication and installation, I have been fully repaired and can resume my duties as soon as Ratchet discharges us,” the figure says. That voice is no longer a dull monotone void of life; the words are chock-full of quiet emotion and Jazz’s spark lurches in its chamber at the familiar cadence.

Jazz hasn’t realized just how much he has missed that voice, and not just its subtle inflections during that short time escaping Shockwave’s lab. It has become a cornerstone in his life during the war. When Jazz had cut off all unnecessary contact, he hadn’t realized that he would be emotionally crippling himself. To hear it again is a balm.

But that short blurb doesn’t answer the question as to whether this is still the same mech and the words aren’t coming as easily as they usually do for him. Silence blankets over them again as Jazz struggles to articulate just what to say next.

“I am _sorry_ , Jazz,” the figure says, breaking the loud silence this time. “I never meant to hurt you. I just…” He looks away, fists clenched in his lap. His next words are so quiet as to be nearly incomprehensible, “I didn’t want to lose you.”

Joy courses through Jazz. There’s no doubt about the memories now and it feels like a vise has lost its grip on his spark. There’s a chance to fix this mess. But white-hot shame follows close behind, tainting the joy, reminding him that he’s the one that made his friend so scared in the first place.

While a part of Jazz is still hurt and still wants to hurt, mostly he is just tired. This whole ordeal was really nothing but of his making. If he hadn’t been so hung up on old prejudices to _listen_ then this awkward situation wouldn’t have arose. But Jazz also knows himself too well. As painful as this lesson has been, Jazz knows that he had needed it. He prides himself on adaptability but hadn’t realized how rusted set in his ways he’d been about drones. He needs to set things right, and not just because he was wrong.

He wants his friend back.

“I’m the one that should be apologizing.”

“You did nothing wrong Jazz --”

“Yes I did!” Jazz rubs a hand over his face. “I shouldn’t’ve cut you off like that. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair. And you didn’t deserve being ignored like that, ‘specially for something you had no control over.”

The mech clasps his hands together again, face set in a stern look that is its staple for meetings. The familiar image makes Jazz’s lips curve up a bit even though he knows it‘s a shallow poker face.

“What do we do now?” the mech asks.

“Don’t know.” Jazz sighs, shifts awkwardly in his seat like he hasn’t done since he was a new-build. “This is all a mess.”

The neutral look crumbles and the mech shrinks in on himself, looking miserably uncertain. In all their vorns together, Jazz has never seen him like this. If there’s any doubt left over about the mech‘s aliveness, on what Ratchet and Mirage had told him, it’s washed away by this display of emotion.

Jazz needs to figure out how to repair this relationship, on how to make things _right_.

An idea comes. It’s not that great but Jazz latches onto it like a sinking mech grasping a lifeline.

“That just means we’ll…we’ll start over. Start from the beginning.”

It’s going to take time to rebuild what they had. Even if it had been for a very good reason, Jazz’s trust has been broken and that’s no easy thing to fix. There’s still the issue of Shockwave, what he's done, and what he‘ll do next. But those things can wait.

Jazz holds out his forearm before he can overthink it. “M’ name’s Jazz,” he says, the words thick and rough in his vocalizer. He feels as if his spark is exploding, unable to contain all the different emotions whirling inside of it. “What’s yours?”

The mech reaches across the gap and grasps his offered forearm with shaky force. Optics overly bright and a fragile, desperate smile growing on his face, he looks like he wants to crumple in relief. Jazz doesn’t think he looks any better himself.

“My name is Prowl…and it’s a pleasure to meet you, Jazz.”


End file.
